The Hearing God Podcast
Anthony Moore and Dan Lamos have met for coffee every week for over a decade. You're invited to listen in on their conversation on The Hearing God Podcast. Explore the prophetic, mystical, and heart-centered aspects of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. Each episode offers insights, inspiration, and practical wisdom to deepen your spiritual journey. Tune in for authentic and encouraging conversations that will enrich and empower your walk with God.
The Hearing God Podcast
4. Knocking At Midnight: Shameless Audacity in Prayer
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What happens when we stop viewing God as a reluctant neighbor who's gone to bed for the night and start approaching Him with shameless audacity? This question frames a profound conversation about the nature of prayer and how we often limit our connection with God through misconceptions of who He is.
Anthony and Dan explore the connection between confession, healing, and prayer, examining how shameless audacity in approaching God transforms our intercession.
Welcome to the Hearing God Podcast. I'm Anthony Moore.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dan Lamas. For over a decade, anthony and I have been diving deep into weekly conversations about the prophetic, the mystical and the matters of the heart.
Speaker 1:And we invite you into these weekly conversations. We hope you feel like an honored guest at our table, so pull up a chair, settle in and let's get started.
Speaker 2:Here we are.
Speaker 3:Here we are. That's actually your line. I stole it's okay. Here we are I share?
Speaker 1:it with you. Yeah, you may have permission to use my line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're coming out of a really great prayer room this morning yeah really great, really great, yep so yeah, how great was it well I probably just for um, for people listening. We were in, we ended up in james james, chapter five, but we were also uh praying into, uh praying for gen z, gen alpha, and just for the move of the spirit and it was just really great yeah yeah yeah, just being there, just happened that four guys you know and just really felt like a really really cool vulnerable sense of praying together.
Speaker 2:It was cool and just connecting confessional kind of confessional corporate praying with healing and how James connected those two things and it was just cool to pray, pray into that together.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, it was it was cool I really refreshing for my from yeah, I would, I would agree with that. Um, I just think so, jumping, jumping on the the james wagon, uh, you know, just the thing that that sort of stood out to me was is, um, just this idea that confession of sin is connected to healing, right, okay, but also the fact that you know, for a lot of people, that's a, that's a really touchy subject right yeah.
Speaker 1:Where maybe in the past someone may have been praying for healing and someone started bringing up unconfessed sin or whatever, or just making them confess sin or whatever, and just maybe in a, maybe in a high pressure situation or God won't heal you if you don't confess sin, and all of those kinds of things. But I think it doesn't change the fact that there is a connection there.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's really. And how should we, as believers, read into that right? Is he just talking about? Uh is he just talking about physical healing or he's talking about emotional healing? Right right spiritual healing those kinds of things right because it's not I mean again like I.
Speaker 1:Maybe there's a way that you could read into that, but to me it's like I, I think healing in general is your whole being right so so then then is the you know, is it so like, if you have a need where you need something and you need healing, should I just go through the laundry list of sins that I've committed and make sure they're all confessed? How should we, as believers, process that? Because it's legitimate? You can make a very good biblical case for some of those things being sort of blockers for healing in your life, right, right For unconfessed sin in whatever area of your life, for that being certainly a blocker, since, thematically, the confession of sin is sort of like repenting is sort of like you know, repenting, renouncing, you know releasing those things to Jesus and then receiving the grace so they aren't ours anymore. We've given them up and we've given them over to Jesus and we receive what he has Like. I think that you know. You know there is a. It's the wrestle a little bit of okay, so this has been an uncommon. This is perhaps an uncomfortable situation, but also also I think that I think that there is a, there's a, there's a number one, it it's the word of god, so you have to at least wrestle with it right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But also, I think the honest pursuit of that is that nobody wants to misinterpret that. So we're like okay, well, holy Spirit, help us see what you mean, help us teach us about the scripture, verse Right, right, and so you know, and there's a way that you could do this and be a jerk about it, or be gentle and humble about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Well, it's very intriguing the interplay of those things, because there's a certain angle that you can approach this from where you see that sin actually results in death. And so, from the small sins to the more serious sins or what feel more serious to me or to my community, every one of them actually is going to produce death of some sort in me, like it's going to bring on some sort of deadness. Yeah, it's going to be toxic. It is toxic in my life, so to confess it, and to know that I'm forgiven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, actually is a healing process.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:one of the ways that can help, perhaps bring some context to it is it's no small thing for me to confess a sin and be forgiven, and know that I'm forgiven.
Speaker 3:That is a healing.
Speaker 1:A healing just happened, I agree.
Speaker 2:And so maybe it helps to put it in a context, to say it's all healing, so that can open the door to a physical ailment being healed as well. Yes, absolutely, because it puts me in that zone, in that flow of healing. Forgiveness is healing, yeah, as your sins is healing, yeah, as your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that healing comes. There's more healing in God, that hey, and he also is interested in healing other parts of your being.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, so it's kind of a shift. You know, shifting forgiveness of sin out of the category of healing can be confusing, because oh, you're forgiven and then you're going to get healed. But if we realize that being forgiven, yeah, brings healing to your life, whether you look any different physically or not, right, you're, you're there. Right, there's a healing that happens in you when you receive forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think I'm just wondering here, like I think, sort of, as we've been talking, thinking about the idea of confession being this process of just, at least you know, a confession of sin. Let me just clarify Confession of sin being this process of acknowledging all the ways that I have chosen my way over God's way, right, right.
Speaker 1:And so the exchange is sort of like this Like I'm not only am I so if I'm saying something out loud a sin that I've confessed right, I'm also, at the same time, surrendering to God's Word, and God's way by doing that? Simply because he said do it.
Speaker 2:I'm intentionally surrendering to God's way, right.
Speaker 1:So by surrendering, then I'm basically coming into alignment or agreement with his word and his way right with him, yeah right so so I like that a lot right.
Speaker 1:So I just I so so it's not just, it's really not just. Hey, let me air my dirty laundry, right, let's just get that out in the air right. There's actually something else happening. It's the surrender and the submission coming into alignment with God's way. And there, perhaps, let me just say perhaps creating the pathway for okay, now you've stepped out of your way into my way creates the space for more of me being god yeah to get into your life being anthony right.
Speaker 3:So so I just, I just think it's just like.
Speaker 1:So it's like all the things that are, all the things that are happening. We, we're, but we're fixated a little bit, for sure, you know, because again, like we have to, as humans, wrestle with the, the death to the death to flesh meaning the, the mind, will and emotions, all the ways that we're dysfunctional. Uh, and agreeing with this world, let's.
Speaker 1:That's a terribly jumbled and thrown together definition but like the ways, the ways of the flesh. Ultimately, we know by the scripture that they lead to death, but so we have to. So it is again back, back. Maybe I'm losing the plot a little bit, but just a little bit. Um, it isn't just about airing our dirty laundry, though we can get fixated on it. It's actually some. By doing that, something else is happening yeah right.
Speaker 2:So I think that's the yeah, that's really I, I feel, I feel like that's very helpful because, uh, the ability to receive healing is sometimes underappreciated, right, because, yes, yes, like being able being receiving healing is a surrender, because part of it is you're saying, even if you don't mouth these words, you're saying I'm laying down the ways I want to fix myself whether it's physical pain or whatever it is. I'm turning away from all my ways that I'm trying to fix this ailment and I'm turning to you, god.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And I'm surrendering to that. It is kind of the same function and it is a receiving. It's saying, okay, I'm not going to. I guess in this sense, you're saying, God, I don't want to do this independently, I want to be well and I want to be well through your method, whatever that is, if that includes taking Tylenol, if that includes a surgery, whatever that is, but it's an attitude of surrender that you are my healer, which means I'm not my own healer, so I'm looking to you and that surrender yeah healer, right.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking to you and that surrender, um, yeah, it's also an act, and I think I want to just you sort of hinted at something about dependence, right, like where sin is an act of independence. Yes, the confession and the repentance is an act of dependence, which which, again, like I think we I just want to draw the connection to we talk a lot about and we have been talking a lot about, not just about the Trinity and the community, the community at the center of the universe, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right and how Jesus demonstrated that dependence right. While he was here on the earth. So I think there's the big connection right, by turning from an act of independence or of our own free will, repenting from that and whatever, I guess committing an act of dependence, right, we're acting in a way that's in alignment with not just you know, okay, so sin and confession, but we're actually committing an act of like, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but also the idea of like okay, god, you're the one that heals me. You're my healer, right Right. Those are acts of dependence. I like that, I love that Right. And so not only are we asking God to intervene in our situation to touch, to heal, to heal, to deliver whatever, but we're also saying I'm like you in this, yeah, right, I'm like you, yeah, in my dependence upon you. Yes, right, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:So I just I this is interesting, yeah, it's fun it's fun how that communion with God in the midst of God just continually shows up throughout Scripture. It's just really, really fun. There's something that I'd love to just wrap open here with you. I mentioned it to you earlier and it's just kind of a—and I feel like it's something you're going to really love, because you've talked about it before too. But it's the whole shameless audacity it's the whole intercession as shameless audacity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm part of a pastor's cohort small group of us that meet weekly with a coach and um, and our coach actually shout out. Our coach is Amy Howard from Encounter Culture Mission Collaborative, and one of the things she challenged us with last week when we met it's just like four of us in the call was to take that whole scene. I believe it's out of Luke 11, where Jesus is teaching on prayer.
Speaker 2:Disciples have just asked him teach us to pray. And so he's teaching them to pray and he tells them this story. He gives them the Lord's Prayer, but then he tells them the story of how there's this man and a friend of his visits late at night and he realizes he doesn't have anything to feed the friend with. So he goes to his next door neighbor and knocks on the door and says, hey, loan me some bread. And the conversation goes with that neighbor that you know it's midnight, I've already gone to bed, you know, I've put my kids to bed, go away, kind of thing. But the neighbor stays at it and the guy ends up loaning him bread and Jesus says it's not, you know, it's because of his shameless audacity that the neighbor lent him the bread and he applies that to prayer.
Speaker 2:And the challenge coming out of the teaching last week was actually allowing God to shift our perspective on what he's like in prayer. Like to recognize that this, that, first of all, you really can't say that God is like that neighbor who had gone to bed at midnight and put his kids to sleep, Like the point of that parable is not.
Speaker 2:hey, there's a point where the father, you know, there's a point where God is the neighbor where he's in bed. Don't bother him, he's put his kids to bed. It's really inconvenient. That wasn't the point of that parable. The point of it wasn't make sure you come to God in the daytime hours, when his office is open.
Speaker 2:The point of him telling that story was there's attitudes in your heart that don't match up with who God really is, and so he was showing them, in a sense. When you pray, this is how you need to perceive God.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So one of those would be God isn't inconvenienced. He's not inconvenienced by your need. Like you don't approach God as one, you're inconveniencing. Another would be God is not possessive of what he has. Right in a sense, that I'm going to have to convince God because he's very guarded about what he gives to his children. So the challenge was to look at what is it that actually the Holy Spirit wants to highlight in you. That's a barrier Right. What's the misperceptions you have about how to approach God in prayer and repenting of those things?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And then embracing prayer we're actually. What we're doing is we're actually praying scriptures over certain people. We choose people we're going to pray for this week, and to pray with shameless audacity. So it just means with no regard for shame. It's just coming and, in a sense, making bold demands, because you know the source that you're coming to is really open to that.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think where my head goes with that is a little bit like we were talking just briefly about Jesus spitting in some mud. When I think shameless audacity, I think outside the norm, like maybe like a cultural norm, right I, for whatever reason, when we start you started talking about this my mind went right to uh. The story from uh.
Speaker 1:I think it's probably probably first or second samuel, probably second samuel with uh jonathan and the sword bearer, or his armor bearer where they did this ridiculous thing, where they said well, if the Philistines who are up on this hill call us up and taunt us, and they call us up on this hill, that will be the sign that we know that God has given them into their hands.
Speaker 1:To me. I think of Gideon, the ridiculousness of 300 men, some torches, some jars and some shouting, right Like. I think of the children of Israel walking around Jericho and them shouting. I think it's the and we hear these stories right. I'm just If any of our listeners that were at one con we heard the testimony of a guy who invited, who on Halloween, in the midst of some of the darkest things at a rave, got up on stage with the intention of preaching the gospel and a whole host of people got saved and healed that night. I think of, I think of, I just think of like, the willingness and and that's it is. It is to me. It's like it is. It very much includes the things that we say. It includes the things that we do, when I think of the shameless audacity and how much pressure there is counter to that yeah, society right, where it's the reasonable thing to not be shamelessly audacious right, it's the soul suck.
Speaker 1:How did John Tyson put it? The soul sucking, voice of reasonableness, or something, something like this yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah so. So to me it's like the the bold, the bold on the audacious thing, like and we see that happen right like when I hear those stories where I see that I heard that guy's testimony and I go, oh man right that's so great yeah it's like I could have, like something in. It moves my heart to go like oh, that would be wild.
Speaker 3:if I did that, I could totally like man I wish I could be Meanwhile at the time.
Speaker 1:You're just you're. You know, during the time you're probably crap in your pants, right?
Speaker 1:like you're you're really like afraid, full of fear, yeah and uh. So I just, I was just, I was just thinking about those things, um, just thinking about those things, uh, and how we feel like, okay, so this, we romanticize a little bit this, this shameless audacity, the boldness that yes, audacity is like the sheer gall of someone, someone who would go and do something wild is really just remarkable. And yet we think, we just like there's something that moves us. Oh, I wish I could be part of that, but yet when it comes upon us, we have to get over ourselves, we have to get over a measure of fear. But I say a lot to say that there is something about it that moves the heart of God. There is something about someone, a human being, willing to be shamelessly audacious that moves the heart of God, and whether it's like you know, did God ask you specifically to do that?
Speaker 1:Maybe he did. Yeah, probably he did, and I don't think we're set out to just do crazy things and expect God to move every time, but it's at least in the paradigm of God to ask us to pull us out of the norm so that he can move through us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I actually have my journal with me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because I wanted to just share with you and to anybody listening kind of what's been happening as I'm repenting. By the way, it is Luke 11, 1 to 13, for anybody who would like to really dig into it 11, 1 to 13, for anybody who would like to really dig into it. But what I've been doing in my repentance is I'm repenting of what I think is happening in intercession.
Speaker 2:I'm actively asking God. Okay, whatever I think the dynamics are, when I come to you and I'm asking for healing or I'm asking for anything that seems impossible to me, but it's possible with you, god, whatever I think is happening when I intercede, god, I am actively in Jesus' name, in the protection of your blood. I am laying all that down because I want a fresh look at this.
Speaker 1:Right Based on the thing Jesus teaches of your blood. Yeah, I am. I'm laying all that down because I want a fresh look at this right based on based on the thing jesus yeah, teaches and I'm pointing at my journal yes everybody listening.
Speaker 2:Can you see me pointing um? But yeah, so, um, so. So for me it has been um, just reading off of my own notes, repenting of my misperception of God as being inconvenienced by our prayers.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I'm just really laying down the idea that he's ever inconvenienced by our prayers. Yeah. Totally so in other words, god is not in bed at midnight and he didn't just put his kids to sleep Right, like part of that point of jesus telling you, jesus is adjusting their attitude. He just gave them the lord's prayer.
Speaker 2:yeah, to me he's adjusting their attitude, like before you run off and pray this prayer yeah let me talk to you about your attitude, because when you pray, you need to embrace my attitude. When I pray, right, this is the way I come to. Yeah to the lord. Yeah, come to my father in prayer this is the way I do it.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's what he's doing. This is the way I kind of perceive it, because then after it he goes into, so ask, seek and knock. So he's like, I think he's feeling like saying here's, here's the attitude of heart you need to have when you pray. So I've been repenting of my perception of god as being inconvenienced by my prayers. Um, I'm repenting of viewing god as being awakened out of sleep in bed when I pray yeah like I am not knocking on the door of a god who's asleep, um, and I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not knocking on the door of a neighbor who has got his kids all settled down for the night and I'm disrupting, right, his life, right in his household. Totally, totally I'm not, I'm, not, I'm. I guess I'm not a problem to other people because I'm coming and asking for this thing.
Speaker 1:You're never a problem to God, right.
Speaker 2:And so I've been coming with an attitude of repentance, including you know, literally renouncing it, not just playing around with that. Yeah, just saying no, I literally renounce that as not just playing around with that. Yeah, just saying no, I literally renounce that as not helpful right like those ideas are not helpful. Right in prayer for me yes to perceive god as agreed. Yeah, god is he settled down and I mean like no, that is yeah that is toxic to my prayer life and I'm and I'm renouncing it like ew, shake it off.
Speaker 1:Shake it off, get off.
Speaker 2:And knowing I can bring that to the cross and leave it. And so then I'm saying, God, teach me to pray then the way you do. And what's really been fun, Anthony, is I feel like I'm beginning to understand Jesus had an attitude of his heart when he prayed, and that's what I'm supposed to embrace. This kind of leads us a little bit into what we were talking about just before we started. Recording was even the fact that Jesus had a prayer life and it was was necessary, and he loved his prayer life and it was productive. And he's saying, yeah, I want you disciples, I want you followers to pray the way I do. And it's kind of been walking me more into that zone of saying now, all of this is the whole point of all this for me is what motivates the shameless audacity? What motivates the? Because you just said earlier, I don't agree. It's not a matter of going around just doing a bunch of wild and crazy stuff, Right Right, Saying, oh, let's see how zany I can be. Of course not.
Speaker 1:It's a good word zany.
Speaker 2:But what it is? Yeah, that tends to be a favorite. You can ask my wife.
Speaker 1:Linda.
Speaker 2:Whenever somebody really makes me just kind of raise an eyebrow and just kind of go what I'll often say, that seemed pretty zany to me, that's usually a category.
Speaker 1:I use for just too off the charts, weird unhinged a little zany. To me, that's usually a category I use for you know, just too off the charts, weird, unhinged a little zany, um and full disclosure.
Speaker 2:I can definitely have zany moments myself anyway, but all that aside, but it's really uh, it's helping me to understand that it's not taking an introverted person, as I tend to be. Naturally. It's not saying okay, you have to become an extrovert. What it is saying for me is I need to tap into the heart motivations of Jesus and I can't imagine Jesus apologetically knocking on the Father's door can't imagine.
Speaker 2:Jesus apologetically knocking on the father's door, like it's like, like I'm coming to grips with the fact that jesus didn't view his father or the holy spirit as inconvenienced in any way when he came to them.
Speaker 1:Right so I think, he's inviting me.
Speaker 2:Hey, pray as I as I prayed. Pray as I pray, like I don't. Yeah, jesus is not apologizing to the father at the father's right hand. Oh, excuse me, father. Yeah, um, you know, here's this guy, anthony moore, and I'm pretty sure you remember him right like he's not apologetically interceding on my behalf, but he also doesn't. He also wants to lift me to also coming on apologetically like I it.
Speaker 2:What motivates the audacity and the shamelessness is that is how it seems like a funny word, how entitled I am, right, right, really, to just just come to the Father and say, okay, and I'll take it over to you. The interesting thing that we were asked by our coach was as you're praying? Because what we're doing is we're taking we're actually not making up prayers, we're taking Scripture and praying them over three individuals. That's good One for healing, one for salvation, another one for just openness to really letting God speak to people's hearts, speak to their hearts and receive His Word in fact anyway, but praying over three people with Scripture, but praying with a shameless audacity Right and our coach said, hey, why don't you take a moment and pay attention?
Speaker 2:to how the Father feels about you. How does God feel about you when you're praying like that?
Speaker 3:Notice how.
Speaker 2:God feels about you when you're praying with shameless audacity and just make note of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh so anyway, okay yeah, I think that I think the interesting thing is one of one of the things that, um, one of the things that stands out to me a little bit in, uh, some of this stuff is, you know, reading that same scripture verse, the thought, the thought came to me, this idea of a begging god, right, like or, or like.
Speaker 1:There seems to be a uh, you know, just this idea of like we're, we're, we're begging god to do something he doesn't want to do, and I think, I think the the idea here. There's an interesting something I heard about that specific passage in Luke 11 was this idea of like okay, so the culture at the time of Jesus it was a bit of a shame-based culture, right? So if you couldn't provide, then there was. If this scenario were to happen to you or me in that day and we couldn't provide, that would be a shameful thing.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and so it was already a shameful thing to go to your neighbor's house and say I don't have enough. I wasn't prepared because of hospitality there was a high value for hospitality.
Speaker 1:And so here's the deal is like one of the interesting things that or at least another angle to look at it would be like as the father, you can be assured that he is going to provide you not only with more than like, not just enough, but more than enough to cover your shame. And it's almost like this. It's like, you know the way Jesus didn't have any uncertainty when he prayed, whether the Father was going to sort of quote unquote, come through for him Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think that's the thing that sort of stands out to me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And this is a thing that I think everyone you know, if you live long enough, will struggle with this the idea that if I ask these things according to God's will, is he going to do that. Right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And not only is he going to, but if he is, when is that gonna happen?
Speaker 1:Because we have the kingdom now and not yet whether it's in a moment or sometime in the future, and I think part of it comes from just the posture of my heart not necessarily being settled in the fact that God is going to do the things according to His will and that might be time but also the things that we ask right. You have not because you ask a misc right. Those kinds of things. You ask a misc right, those kinds of things. There is a clear biblical. It's laid out biblically that when we ask according to His will, we ask the things that are in His kingdom, that he is going to do those things. But a lot of times I approach those things from a beggar's.
Speaker 2:I approach those things from a beggar's perspective right With a measure of uncertainty in my heart that.
Speaker 1:Is he going to do the thing that I'm?
Speaker 3:asking.
Speaker 1:Right, really good things, whether that's healing, whether that's a move of God, whether that's Provision, provision, yeah, those kinds of things Like we know scripturally that you know of things like like we know scripturally that you know, talking about provision, we know scripturally, god introduced himself as jehovah jireh. So how do we know that you know that god provides? Well, he showed up to his people and said I'm the god who provides. Yes, you're gonna know me, this is one of my names, right? And so what I'm trying to get at is that I think, if we let Him, the Holy Spirit wants to do this work in our heart where, in terms of and this is very connected to perhaps even facilitates a shameless audacity, and we pray.
Speaker 1:But this confidence that we have that God is actually going to do the thing that we've asked him to do when it's according to his will. It is in heaven. We pray on earth as it is in heaven, so the thing I'm praying for is in heaven, right. We pray on earth as it is in heaven, so the thing I'm praying for, right, is in heaven. So how much more will he do that? And I think there's a core part of us that has to. If we let him, he'll come in and do a work, and I'm just saying I'm in process.
Speaker 3:I don't think anyone has arrived.
Speaker 1:But, it's this idea of this confronting the uncertainty, the uncertainty versus the certainty, because Jesus didn't have that uncertainty. So, therefore, it is possible by the Holy Spirit for you and I to walk in a certain certainty when it comes to the things that we pray for.
Speaker 1:And I think, just last thing I'll- say this I think I'll say this is like if you read Leonard Ravenhill, read AW Tozer, read EM Bounds, read all of those sort of giants of prayer from the last hundred read. You could even go further back, right, read Andrew Murray, or there's a.
Speaker 3:Actually I don't think he was more than 100 years ago.
Speaker 1:but still there is a certainty that those guys speak of right, because they've discovered something in the place of prayer that God has done a work in their life to remove that uncertainty, that the thing that you're asking for, when it's according to my will or when it's according to the will of God, he will do it.
Speaker 2:So I think that's just a yeah. I'm loving this because full disclosure, that is what I want to walk in Like that.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 2:And I guess I don't know if it's a misuse of the term, but I'll throw it out there. That feels like shalom peace to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That feels like the what's the word you used. There wasn't a hesitation or there wasn't a certainty.
Speaker 1:Yes, a certain certainty, Jesus had a certainty that he just walked in.
Speaker 2:Yes, because that's what I want, because I see it in the New Testament writers and I see it in the book of Acts. Yeah, there's these people who were used to display all kinds of signs and wonders in Jesus' name, and yet thousands of them experienced torturous deaths, difficult trials, counted themselves worthy of suffering for the name, Like the apparent contradiction of that. And Jesus himself walked in this certainty and yet he was rejected throughout his ministry by many people, by the very religious leaders of the faith. He was rejected Oftentimes, people throwing stones at them and coming against and persecuting jesus and his disciples as they ministered over those three years right, and all the hardships and then, of course, everything he went through and the passion week you know willingly chose to do those things submitting to the crucifixion and all that yeah like that.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to say he did that all of that with certainty. Yeah, like like that's what I want I want for sure rather than batting a thousand, I want the attitude of certainty.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm really glad you said that word yeah because to me, that is what motivates the shameless audacity is the certainty that if God doesn't seem to do the thing on the timeline that I am laying out, that doesn't shake my certainty. That's what I want. I want a prayer right. That's what right. That's what I want. I want a prayer life that's like that. Yeah, um, and that is not for the faint of heart, and I want to encourage everybody that doesn't come in a week or in a one moment, that's a lifetime, yeah, it really is, you know, and that's encounter like, that's you.
Speaker 1:You get that by stepping in, by proximity, right, can I say that like to me, and I there's a little bit, I want to just expand on that a little bit if I can. But, uh, you don't get that by just gritting your teeth, yeah, and just white knuckling your way through your prayer life. That come, that certainty comes through encounter, right. So, yeah, yeah, well, I guess I, because I want, I want you to sure, can you, are you okay to put a stick a?
Speaker 2:pin in that thing.
Speaker 3:You're gonna say sure because I don't want to lose it, but yeah for sure, but I just want to throw.
Speaker 2:I want to throw a little confessional out there. What that looks like in real time the wrestle looks like for me in real time often is I will be in prayer, praying for a miraculous thing to happen that I've prayed for. Maybe I'm persisting in prayer and stuff, and I'll, you know, maybe be waiting for god to move, and then I'll get a sense that he's not going to move, right, and this is just and this is dan's prayer closet right. Typically I'll have my phone nearby.
Speaker 2:This is what it looks like in real time for me, and I'll notice it. If I start to feel that uncertainty start to creep in and take over, I'll pick up my phone literally and I'll open Instagram and start scrolling and I know in that moment I can feel in my heart what's happened is I have said, yeah, I didn't think God was gonna do it anyway. Right, that is literally the thought as I scroll as I stop and I go.
Speaker 2:Why am I scrolling? And what I'm aware of is whether I'm looking at something I shouldn't or not, the fact that I've turned from praying to scrolling is because I've said in my mind it's a well-worn track. I've said I didn't think he was going to do it anyway, right you?
Speaker 1:suddenly shifted your agreement to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't think he was going to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, back to normal, right. You've agreed with, you've agreed with the lie that god isn't the provider.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't think yeah, I don't think, I didn't think it was going to happen, so I'll just have yeah, all familiar. I'm going to numb out yeah and so that just to yeah just to throw it out there, that's what.
Speaker 1:That's what the wrestle looks like that's real stuff, so at times I go no and I set the phone down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I go no. That's what I'm repenting of right right that yeah it's not, do I think god can it's well I didn't think he was gonna anyway right, okay that's it's the, it's the can versus will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like will he do it? Yeah, I didn't think he was really interested in it.
Speaker 2:Or I didn't think I could persevere enough.
Speaker 1:Like, I'm judging 100%.
Speaker 2:And just for everybody's benefit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, as the prayer pastor of King's Church.
Speaker 3:that's a real-time struggle for me For sure.
Speaker 2:Like saying okay, the certainty and uncertainty looks like. Well, I didn't think I was going to do it anyway, so I'm just going to numb out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is really, I think. No, that's super good, I think. The thing is, what I wanted to jump on was, like this thing, right, talking about certainty, as I said a couple minutes ago, was it? It isn't. It is the journey of a lifetime right it is the journey of right. There are moments, and there, and I mean truth be told there are moments when we are more certain than others. Yes, based on you know, uh, how it is there are moments, I certainly when I pray.
Speaker 1:Yes, this isn't where I remembered it to be, but I wanted to say that I think you know, talking about prayer, talking about certainty, talking about encounter right, it is proximity right. There is a it does the when, as our heart shifts towards health or, you know and by health I mean the standard that Jesus set it does come by being close to him. There is a for lack of a better way to say it there is an osmosis that happens when we get around him.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Whereas we get infused with grace to be able to pray not just according to his will, but in the same heart posture as he did. And I do want to highlight the gift, the gift of prayer is God himself right, and there is a weird you know, sometimes it's hard to write the equation down in a right way that I feel great about.
Speaker 2:About what has to happen, picturing a beautiful mind.
Speaker 1:But we do it, we do it Like all the time I'm finding these things. I'm going to get close to God so that he can do this or I know that I need to ask God something. So I need to get myself into a certain state. I need to feel good about myself so that I can approach. God, that's like such. I think that's kind of oh yeah humanity 101.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's not healthy. Obviously it's not healthy and I think you know, ultimately, becoming like christ is moving away from that, but I, I do want to say that, like I think, I more and more and I do this, I do this a little bit with uh you know, prophetic ministry, prophetic moments, moments, and I encourage sometimes, when I think fairly consistently, the last number of times that I've taken a team somewhere, we've gone and done ministry somewhere, it comes with this idea that God doesn't owe me anything Right.
Speaker 1:So that doesn't mean that he's not gonna speak. That doesn't mean that he doesn't owe me anything, right? So that doesn't mean that he's not going to speak. That doesn't mean that he doesn't want to speak. It's this beholdenness that, because I've done this, you must do that. It doesn't work like that right, and so that's the part in prayer I think that I love is like I, or not, that I love well.
Speaker 1:I do love it, but it's the part that I'm trying to remind myself that the first motivation of prayer is to be with Him. Right Is to be connected literally close to Him regardless if we say anything or not, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's like so that my heart is turned towards him in such a way that I experience his presence. That's it to me, yeah, like that's the primary motivation. Anything that comes, anything that comes you comes from, that is sort of secondary, but that's to me it's like whether I ask him for something or not, which there's lots of times that I do it is a secondary right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is a secondary piece to this proximity.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because the connection will I mean mean again the, the things. Let me say this maybe, maybe, again not. Will I ask him for things in eternity? Probably, um, but that's going to be. That's going to be less than I guess, or maybe I will, I don't even know, like I guess, what does perfection look like?
Speaker 3:why?
Speaker 1:in perfection. Do you ask for anything? I don't't know? Let's just just to say maybe. Let's just put a big question mark. The connection piece will always be right. I'm always going to be connected to him.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right Right.
Speaker 1:And so so the thing is is like I'm in this life while I'm, you know, sucking air right. Like is so that I can, you know, I can connect to him. The connection piece, like. I move my heart towards connection, Right? You know, as a almost like a prophetic statement, Like this was this will be always knowing that God will meet me here, right? That the promise you'll find me when you seek me with all your heart. It isn't you'll find my hand. When you seek me with all your heart, you'll actually find me.
Speaker 3:And I think that's again maybe.
Speaker 1:I'm belaboring a little bit but I just wanted to say to me in this area of this audacious faith, this certainty it comes from proximity and I think the more chance, whatever just bear with my language the higher degree of probability to have that certainty through encounter is to prioritize connection over anything else that we might ask in that place of prayer.
Speaker 3:That's a long way of saying something. Well, man, it's profound saying something.
Speaker 2:Well, man, it's profound. It makes me curious at times. What is, I wonder, if teaching the bride, like God, teaching the bride to intercede, is a big part of what he's been doing for 2,000 years? Yeah, like, what will the bride be like when she's?
Speaker 1:fully prepared for Jesus? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:Part of it is. I wonder if part of that is praying like Jesus, like interceding as Jesus does, interceding with him, if that is part of what is pleasurable for God about the bride. Part of what is pleasurable for God about the bride is that we've grown, that the church has grown in understanding what the point of intercession is, that it's communion with God it's participating in this intimacy of the Father, son, holy Spirit, for you died and your life is now hidden with. Christ in God.
Speaker 1:Can I just say one thing, hitting back on this certainty piece with Jesus operating and praying with perfect certainty, it still creates this space, you know, because just one thing I want to hit on is like so what do you make of in light of that? What do you make of Hebrews 5-7, where it says in the days of his flesh? You know he made his intercession with loud cries, right?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I would say for sure, when we receive the heart of God for our world, whether that's our family or the situations our city our nation the things around us that don't look like heaven
Speaker 1:yet right, there is very much a place, because the crying, the loud cries, the anguish, the tears, they don't come from a place of. They don't come from a place of either performance trying to get God's or even necessarily begging God, but they come as almost a Sharing, maybe, or in the passion, the zeal, the even brokenheartedness at the non-heaven that is around us, right, and it's like in that, when our hearts suddenly become more aligned with his heart, it is a grieving. When gosh pick, a societal dysfunction, when abortion is happening, when marriages break up, when all those things murder, all those things, you know, when all of those things are happening around us, there is a grieving. That happens right, not necessarily, but it isn't uncertain. That's what I was trying to get at and it very much creates a space of like God, I'm sharing your heart and therefore, if you're sharing your heart with me, then my intercession is going to look like tears and travail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so because your heart, I mean again, imagine the heart of God right Infinite.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Burning passionate. His desire and his jealousy for humanity is on a scale the likes of which we Right, you know. I'm sure it would kill us if we received the full brunt of his jealousy.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Right, so that's what I want to say I think it doesn't create Like when we cry. If we're crying we become a little more passionate in the way that we pray. It isn't out of this weird place of either performance or maybe even it's the subtlety it's not necessarily lack. And again, I'm just.
Speaker 1:there's a question mark there yeah but it really is again, certainty is really about sharing god's heart through encounter. That's where that's really one I want to get again. I know we pray, you know, because, yeah, I, I think I think there's a. Let me just say this in whatever way you would split up like uh, like having like how you ever you would split up lack and an orphan spirit, right, we're not praying out of an orphan spirit, we're actually praying out of sonship. But you know again that we're human, so we're gonna have needs, so by all means, pray from that place. But it isn't this orphan spirit thinking I have to beg God. That's what I'm getting at yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not. These loud cries aren't begging God, they're actually sharing his heart.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you could see me. I'm being very dramatic in my gestures.
Speaker 2:Yes, for everybody listening. It's very effective. I'm getting the point, yeah Well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, maybe we can, unless you got something else.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to suggest this would be a great place to wrap up with a prayer. You know, could we, just could we call out for certainty?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That certainty would mark the intercession of the church in this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, okay, more than measurable results, all this stuff. I think you prayed last time, so maybe I'll pray this yeah, go for it, man, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, father, we just come before you, lord, just on behalf of me and Dan and anyone who's listening on behalf of me and Dan and anyone who's listening, god and I just say, lord, we just love what you're doing on the earth in these days. Lord, we love the signs of your hand at work. God, and I just pray, lord, in the way that we've been praying for the prayer heart of your people to increase God.
Speaker 1:I ask God for certainty when it comes to the way that we pray, lord, that we would just have this confidence, knowing that when we pray according to your will, it's just going to happen, lord, and I pray that you just give us grace to rest in that, lord, but also grace to just surrender the timing of that, lord, that we haven't arrived at the fullness yet, we haven't arrived where you come back, lord, and everything is complete, god.
Speaker 1:And so, lord, I just pray right now. God for listeners, lord, for Dan and me, lord, that we Therefore grace for certainty, lord, that we there for grace for certainty. Lord, that we would have be supremely confident in your that you are going to do what you say you're going to do in every like, in into its completion. Lord, there won't be a, there won't be a little piece over here that's missing. There is a fullness, god, to your complete work. Lord, that we live from the finished work of the cross, lord, but unto perfection, lord. And so, god, I ask for grace from my own heart for Dan. Lord, we bless you, we just love you, in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a wrap on this episode of the Hearing God podcast.
Speaker 1:It has been a privilege to have you as our honored guest. Until next time.
